theft across the global apparel supply chain very likely exceeds half a billion dollars. The figure is sure to rise as the pandemic and its economic consequences continue to unfold. A Chronic Failure of Leading Brands to Ensure Workers Are Paid the Money They Earn Severance theft during the pandemic is an acute manifestation of a long-standing failure of apparel brands and retailers to ensure that the workers in their supply chains are paid what they are legally owed when they lose their jobs. Over the last 15 years, the WRC, among other organizations, has exposed dozens of cases of large-scale severance theft at garment factories.8 Virtually every major apparel brand and retailer has been implicated. These historical violations, like those occurring in the midst of the pandemic, represent the failure of brands and retailers to uphold their own labor standards. Every significant apparel brand and retailer has a self-generated labor rights code of conduct. Virtually without exception, these codes commit the brand to ensure that supplier factories pay all legally mandated wages and benefits. Despite this, brands and retailers chronically fail to ensure that severance is paid, with catastrophic consequences for workers. Brands and retailers themselves acknowledge the high incidence of severance theft in their supply chains. For example, in 2012, adidas, facing criticism over nonpayment at a large garment factory in Indonesia, defended itself by pointing out that nonpayment of severance is so common in that country that the large majority of garment and footwear workers are not paid the full compensation they are legally owed when they lose their jobs.9 Across all factories in our data set, we estimate that 160,000 workers have lost $171.5 million to severance theft. In some past cases of severance theft, public pressure on factory owners and brands, or the enforcement of contractual brand obligations, has led to back pay that has made workers whole. In others, workers never received their full severance. Solutions: Immediate and Long-Term It is imperative that brands and retailers, in all cases where dismissed workers have not been paid what they are legally owed, step in and ensure full payment, whether by compelling the relevant suppliers to pay or by providing the funds themselves. The WRC will press brands, in the 31 confirmed cases covered in this report, to make workers whole and will engage on other cases where feasible. However, the problem is far broader than this immediate set of cases, and it will continue to plague garment workers long after the pandemic unless fundamental change is achieved. Labor unions and advocacy organizations have proposed that brands and retailers sign a WRC yz Fired, Then Robbed zy Page 3